Yuletide Peril Read online

  At one time the weatherboarding had been white, but the paint had peeled off, leaving it a dingy gray. Some of the windows were broken and strips of curtains dangled through the holes. Weather-beaten green shutters hung askew. Janice assumed that the first floor looked as bad as the rest of the house.

  “Can we live here?” Brooke asked in a frightened voice.

  “Not right away. I can see why the receptionist was amused when I asked for a key. It will take a bulldozer to clear a path through that wilderness so we can reach the house.”

  Janice’s great-grandfather had built this house in the late nineteenth century with money earned from the coal industry. He had accumulated vast wealth, and his sons and grandsons had squandered most of his fortune, but Janice had no idea that the family home had fallen into such disrepair. John Reid, their uncle, had lived in a house in Stanton for several years prior to his death. From the looks of things, nothing had been done to the property since he’d moved to town.

  Not only was Janice disappointed in her legacy, but as she glanced around the property, a flutter of apprehension played a staccato rhythm up and down her spine. She’d experienced plenty of fear when she’d lived in her parents’ home, but after she’d landed in the sheltering arms of VOH, she’d had no reason to be afraid. So what had caused her sudden jolt of terror? A shock so powerful that Janice wondered if she should forget about moving to Stanton and return to Willow Creek where she still had a job, as well as friends and acquaintances. Cutting ties with the past might not be the sensible thing to do. Should she ask Mr. Santrock to sell this property and transfer all the assets to her banking account in Willow Creek?

  But during the uncertain years of her childhood, Janice had developed a hardness of spirit and self-reliance that had kept her going when most girls her age would have given up. After she’d survived long days and nights alone as Brooke’s only caregiver, to preserve her own sanity, Janice had learned to overcome her fear.

  She put the car in gear and moved forward until she found a place to turn around. Brooke huddled beside her, a fearful expression on her face. Janice had thought that relocation would be good for Brooke, as well as for herself, but now she was uncertain about her decision.

  Trying to put on a cheerful face for her sister, Janice said enthusiastically, “Let’s stop by the school and see if you can register today. You’ll enjoy coming to a new school.”

  “But if we don’t have a house to live in, how can we move here?” Brooke asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “I don’t have an answer to your question now. But I’ve been planning for months to start a new life in this town, and I will not willingly give up my plans.”

  Eventually, she might have to return to Willow Creek, but not without checking her options. Janice wondered if her alternative idea of selling Mountjoy and buying another house in Stanton would be feasible. She doubted that the property would bring a good price in its present condition. Janice slowed the car to take another look as they drove past her legacy on the way into town.

  “Looks like a haunted house to me,” Brooke observed.

  A chill tingled along Janice’s spine again, for the same thought had occurred to her. She sensed that Mountjoy spelled trouble for her. Did danger lurk behind the thick undergrowth?

  Her father’s visits to the family home had been infrequent, and after he became an adult, he never spent a night in the house. He avoided the place because, in every generation, a Reid had died a tragic death at Mountjoy. Would she be the Reid to die in the present generation? Annoyed at the thought, Janice questioned what had happened to her common sense. Again she remembered her uncle’s letter and his comment about mysterious happenings at Mountjoy.

  During the four years she’d spent at the Valley of Hope, Janice had learned a lot about the Bible. Miss Caroline Renault, the director of the facility, had emphasized the necessity of memorizing Scripture verses. When she was especially troubled, Janice always reached into her storehouse of Scripture verses for a spiritual truth that encouraged her to carry on.

  Glancing at Brooke’s woebegone face, fear again threatened to overwhelm Janice. Searching frantically for an antidote to combat this fear, Janice dipped into her memory bank.

  “Brooke, Miss Caroline always said that the Bible can help us work out our problems. Let’s think of some Bible verses to encourage us to face the future with hope.”

  Brooke sniffled and blew her nose with a pink tissue that she took from the pocket of her brown shorts. “I don’t know many verses ’cept the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-third psalm.”

  “That psalm has a lot of encouraging words. Can you think of one verse to say over and over when you’re scared?”

  “‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’”

  “That’s a good one,” Janice said. “The one I’m thinking about is from the New Testament. The apostle Paul encouraged his young friend, Timothy, by saying, ‘God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power; and of love, and of a sound mind.’ We won’t let that old dilapidated house scare us. Let’s think about how it looked a hundred years ago.”

  “In that picture you have?”

  “Yes. Maybe we can make it that way again.”

  With a wistful sigh, Brooke said, “I do want a home of our own. I’m always afraid I’ll have to live with Dad and Mom again.”

  Janice winced when Brooke expressed the fear that had worried her until she turned eighteen. “I’m your legal guardian now, and wherever I am, you’re going to be with me,” she said firmly.

  “I don’t suppose they’d want me anyway.”

  Hatred, so acute it almost choked her, surged through Janice. Her feelings about her parents had been one barrier she couldn’t overcome to maintain a satisfying Christian outlook. She couldn’t forgive her parents for the way they’d neglected Brooke and her. Leroy and Florence Reid were addicted to drugs and alcohol, and they spent most of their time in bars. Even when they were at home, they lolled around in drunken stupors. Most of their money was spent on alcohol, not food for their children.

  She could have stood it for herself, but when it became clear even to her young eyes that Brooke was in danger of becoming malnourished, Janice had started hoarding away money taken from her parents’ wallets for food. She’d been successful in keeping them alive for six months before her parents were arrested and convicted of robbing a convenience store. They’d been sent to prison for ten years, with the possibility of parole after seven. Brooke had become a ward of the Department of Health and Human Services when Janice had been sent to the Valley of Hope.

  Suddenly it dawned on Janice that it was almost time for her parents to be paroled. Even if they hadn’t contacted their daughters while they were in prison, if her father found out that she’d inherited his brother’s estate, he’d try to take the money away from her. She wished now that she’d been more secretive about where she was moving.

  The compassion of Miss Caroline and the other staff members at VOH had compensated somewhat for the physical misery of Janice’s first fourteen years. But her parents’ neglect gnawed at Janice’s spirit every day, and she didn’t think she could ever forgive them. Even when she’d prayed the Lord’s Prayer in chapel services, she had always remained silent when they came to the phrase, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

  Her unwillingness to forgive had always stood between Janice and a satisfactory relationship with God. She believed that Jesus had died for her sins and she’d accepted Him as her Savior. But could she ever claim Him as Lord of her life until she humbled herself and forgave her parents?

  Chapter Two

  The one-story, rambling elementary school, with a redbrick and stone exterior, was a relatively new structure. Janice halted the car beside a man who was sweeping the sidewalk in front of the school, and rolled down the car’s window.

  “Are any of the school officials in today?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “The
principal and the guidance counselor are here, and a secretary.”

  “Good. Where should I park?”

  He motioned to the front of the building. “Right here beside the school is okay,” he said. “There ain’t much traffic today.” With a chuckle, he added, “But wait ’til school starts—we’ll have plenty of cars around here then.”

  “Thanks.”

  The man waved a friendly hand and continued sweeping as she and Brooke got out of the car and entered the building through a set of double doors. They faced a long hallway with other corridors to the left and right. An arrow on the wall, labeled “Office,” pointed to the right.

  “I’m scared,” Brooke said, her steps lagging.

  Janice was uneasy about their situation, too, and she muttered, “‘God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power.’”

  She straightened her back, took Brooke’s hand and headed resolutely toward the office. Her shaky self-assurance suffered an immediate setback when she turned the corner and narrowly missed colliding with the same man she’d bumped into at the convenience store earlier in the day.

  Lance Gordon couldn’t believe his eyes. He couldn’t be encountering this young woman twice in the same day! Normally, he wouldn’t have given the previous incident a second thought, but this woman’s long-lashed green eyes and stubborn chin had flashed frequently into his mind as he’d continued his daily schedule. Assuming that she was just a stranger passing through town, he was surprised at his low spirits when he thought he wouldn’t see her again.

  “So we meet again,” he said, a wide grin spreading across his face.

  “But at least this meeting wasn’t as dramatic as the one this morning,” Janice said, trying to match his light tone.

  Lance glanced from Janice to Brooke, noticing the resemblance in their features.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “I want to enroll my sister in school.”

  Lance’s heart skipped a beat and he sensed a rush of pleasure to know that meeting this woman hadn’t been transitory. His eagerness to get acquainted with her surprised him.

  “The guidance counselor is the one to see, but she’s busy with another family right now,” he said. “Come into my office. I’ll take down some of your personal information, and she’ll schedule your classes later on in the week.”

  He motioned them to the door tagged with a principal’s sign.

  “You’re the principal?” Janice asked as she walked through the door he held open for them. He seemed very young to be the administrator of a school.

  “Yes. I’m Lance Gordon.”

  “My name is Janice Reid, and this is my sister, Brooke. She’ll be entering the sixth grade.”

  Janice apparently wasn’t married since she had the same name as her sister, Lance thought as he pulled out two chairs from a conference table in his office. And what difference does that make? he demanded of his inner self, looking surreptitiously at her left hand, which didn’t have a ring of any kind. After Brooke and Janice were seated, he took a chair opposite them and picked up a yellow pad that was on the table.

  “Are you living in Stanton or in the rural area of the county?”

  “Does it matter?”

  He looked at her questioningly. “Not at all, as far as attending school here. We serve the whole county, but I wanted to know if she’d travel by bus.”

  “I don’t know. When I bumped into you this morning, literally speaking, that was the first time I’d ever set foot in Stanton. I don’t know anything about the area.”

  “Where are you going to live?”

  “I don’t know that, either,” she said, with a glance at Brooke.

  Momentarily, Lance wondered if he had a homeless family on his hands. But, with the spirit of independence that hovered around Janice Reid like an aura, she didn’t resemble any homeless person he’d ever known. Besides, both Janice and her sister were well-dressed, and if he remembered correctly, the sedan she’d been driving this morning was only two or three years old.

  A slight tap on the door interrupted them, and a child peeped into the room. “I wanted to see if you were busy, Uncle Lance. I guess you are.”

  “Come on in, Taylor,” he said, “and meet a new student, who’ll be in your grade this term.”

  The sandy-haired girl with blue eyes stepped to her uncle’s side.

  “Brooke, this is my niece, Taylor Mallory. She’s entering the sixth grade, too. Brooke Reid and her sister Janice are moving to Stanton. How about giving Brooke a tour of the building while her sister and I complete her enrollment?”

  Taylor clapped her hands, and it was evident that she was an enthusiastic child, a perfect foil for Brooke’s quiet, meek nature. “That will be big fun. Come on, Brooke. This is a great school, but we’re going to have a tough teacher.”

  Taylor’s chattering continued as the two children left. Janice was pleased to have the opportunity to talk without Brooke in the room.

  “Why are you reluctant to tell me where you’re living?” Lance asked, interrupting her musings.

  “I don’t know where I’ll live,” she said. “And if I tell you where I thought I’d be living, you’ll laugh.”

  “Try me,” he said, a compelling expression in his piercing blue eyes.

  “I’ve inherited the Reid property on the outskirts of town. I’d intended to live there until I saw it for the first time today.”

  Instead of being amused, Lance was momentarily appalled that Janice was related to the local—and infamous—Reid family. He could understand why Janice was disappointed about the house’s condition, because after John Reid’s death, the house had deteriorated rapidly. It seemed strange that no one had informed Janice about the condition of her property.

  “So you’re John Reid’s niece?”

  “Yes, but it was a surprise when he remembered me in his will. My father is the black sheep of the family, and he’s had nothing to do with the Reids for years. I haven’t seen any of them since I was a child.”

  John Reid was a respectable member of the community, but most of the Reid family did have a poor reputation. John had prospered, but Lance supposed that his long illness had depleted his finances. Janice’s inheritance probably wasn’t a large one.

  “I couldn’t inherit until I was twenty-one,” Janice continued. “I’ve only had a car for a few weeks, so I hadn’t looked over my legacy until an hour ago. As you can imagine, I had quite a surprise.”

  “When I was a child, it was a nice house, but I don’t suppose it’s fit to live in now.”

  “I’m not giving up on that idea until I see the inside of the place. I had an appointment to see Mr. Santrock, the lawyer, this morning, but he won’t be in his office today. His secretary wouldn’t let me have the key to the house.”

  “But I…” Lance started and paused. On his way to work this morning, he’d seen Santrock walking along Main Street. But perhaps he shouldn’t tell Janice—the lawyer may have had a good reason for not keeping the appointment. Maybe something unexpected had come up after he’d seen him.

  Janice looked at him curiously, but when he didn’t continue, she said, “I’ve quit my job, and I intend to live somewhere in Stanton. What do you need to know about Brooke? I’ll have her school records transferred as soon as we go back home.”

  “Her age?” Lance asked

  “Eleven.”

  “Where has she attended school?”

  “The elementary school in Willow Creek. I’m Brooke’s guardian.”

  Janice seemed young to be the guardian of her sister. Lance wondered if their parents were dead.

  “We can probably find everything we need to know from her records when they arrive.”

  “I’ll have them transferred right away. When does school start?”

  “August twenty-fifth.”

  “That will give me more than a week to finish my work and move. I noticed there’s a motel where we can stay for a few days until I settle on something
.”

  Glancing through the window behind Lance, Janice saw Brooke and Taylor shooting baskets on the playground, and she felt compelled to confide in him. She wouldn’t start a new life by concealing the ugly things in her past.

  “Thanks for not asking questions, but there are things about us that you should know, things you won’t find in Brooke’s records.”

  Janice’s mouth was tight and grim and her long-lashed green eyes smoldered with bitterness. Still staring out the window, she explained. “The reason I’m Brooke’s guardian is because our parents are in prison. They’ve been alcoholics and drug addicts as long as I can remember. They illegally traded their welfare benefits for money whenever they could. When their welfare payments stopped because they wouldn’t work, they started stealing to support their addictions.”

  Janice paused and closed her eyes. Those days were a nightmare she wished she could forget.

  “They were caught robbing a convenience store and sent to prison. Brooke was placed in a foster home and I was sent to the Valley of Hope.” She looked directly at him. “Do you know what kind of place that is?”

  Lance had heard of the Valley of Hope, a reputable institution that ministered to at-risk children and teenagers. He couldn’t envision Janice Reid as an at-risk teenager. At a loss to know how to comment, Lance said, “Yes.”

  “I was fourteen and Brooke was four when that happened. I left VOH when I graduated from high school, got a job and saved enough money to prove I can support my sister. Uncle John’s legacy also helped to convince the Department of Health and Human Services that I’m a fit guardian.”

  Janice’s hands moved restlessly and she clenched them in her lap.

  “I’ve prayed that this inheritance was the end of our troubles and that Brooke and I could have a home together here.” She looked at Lance quickly, hopefully. “How will people in Stanton react to us when they learn that our parents are in prison?”

  Lance leaned forward in his chair and placed his elbows on the table. The compassion in his dark blue eyes lessened the tension Janice experienced when she talked about her parents.